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(no subject)
Anger.
It lived within her, filling her with purpose. It colored everything in her life an uncompromising red. So. Much. Anger.
Ask anyone who had ever crossed her path, and they would tell you the same thing: To say she was full of anger was like saying that the universe was full of stars.
It was and she was and that’s all there was to it.
Period. End of story.
Except it wasn’t the end of the story. Not hers. It was only the beginning.
Where it really all started was with a ship.
ACTIVITY TRACKER
ITEMS/POSSESSIONE
no subject
Character Name: Nebula
Faction: Meridian
Actions: (Please provide a brief, bulleted list of the actions your character took during the Harbinger Oracle. Feel free to justify your actions and how they pertain to the "mission" the Harbinger gave you, but please keep it short! This can be as long or as short as you'd like, depending on your character's actions!)
👾 Helped with evacuations before the Oracle but on the day of did try to make it early.
👾 In the Exalt Room she tells the others to stay away. This gives poor results with Gen who attacks her. She both insists that she could break him if she wanted but that she won't if he doesn't get in her way. It continues before he skitters away. (Ongoing)
👾 In the dominance room, Rin has to teach the rules of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Skeptical, Nebula trusts she's telling the truth for it to be a lie. This is why you don't trust people folks and why Rin gets pushed in a pit instead. (Ongoing)
👾 Amos and Nebula get trapped in a puzzle room that forces them to work together to get out, but once they're out they're fed up with each other and attack. It ends with both getting out through separate doors.(Ongoing)
👾 In one Hunger Room, Nebula meets Quetz who talks about how soft and comfortable the room looks. Nebula who's hunger is longing for that kind of thing struggles with wanting to stay. But eventually after getting hugged is too overwhelmed and flees.(Ongoing)
👾 In one of the heartache rooms Nebula is forced to handle the loss of the Guardians. Clipped and angry, she struggles against Dimitris responses before managing to overcome it.(Ongoing)
👾 In another heartache room, Link and Nebula meet where the specifics of loss is her sister - Gamora.(Ongoing)
👾 Finds Atsumu in a hunger room and in a longing for acceptance asks for a conversation to see if he's afraid of her. Or by her words, "do i look cool?" Most likely to run away after.(Ongoing)
👾 Meets Regulus in a hunger room while desiring touch. They hold hands and talk for a moment before... (in progress but likely she'll force a hug to sneak her food and run away)
👾 Sees Hayame following behind shadow children and goes to stop her before it's too late.(Ongoing)
👾 Hears Liem's message and initially ignores it. By the end of the Oracle she's found a different resolve and reaches out to him. This ends in Nebula helping him to escape while also winding up in another puzzle room they get out of together.(Ongoing)
👾 In a hunger room faces starvation/hunger with Rudbeckia. (Ongoing)
👾 At the near end of the Oracle she meets the effigy with Gray. Knowing that they are being asked to sacrifice something great to obtain it Nebula decides that the thing the oracle can have are all the times she failed and got back up before - of the memories fighting her sister and the resulting emotions. (Ongoing)
The main take away here is that whereas Nebula did start with the intent of taking the Oracle seriously and did attack each circumstance with her own determination... I OOCly set her up to not confront violent means but have to deal with emotions/concept she views as weakness and struggles with. So to get through she had to confront those and while she faced it head on she did ditch as soon as possible in most cases (or get madge).
But beyond this as Nebula was pitted against others, told she was never good enough (and replaced when she wasn't) etc the feeling the Oracle instilled in her was a lot like the time under her father. So she very stubbornly decided "I will do my damnedest while not compromising the morals I've decided to live by". Which means sometimes she did help when she shouldn't have! Even if it was quick/gruff and in most cases did go off on her own as quickly as possible. At the feeling of being told "what are you willing to give up," she decided she already gave up too much and had hung onto feelings of that kind for too long... Which is why she ultimately decided that she didn't need the Harbinger's judgement :') Her final sacrifice was essentially her version of a "screw you," while giving them up her memories of being forced to fight her sister to 'let go' (not the memories exactly, but the emotions; so while she went for the anger and resentment such things brought her to she won't have any lingering feelings about it which is honestly what she wants! to let go.).
no subject
Faction: Meridian
Did your character keep their Sunbeam bead? Yes, but she probably just keeps it in a pocket where no one can ever see it and she can pretend she didn't keep it.
New Tier: 2
Justification:
As formerly described, Nebula had no doubts about worlds being destroyed when she arrived. Some variation of worldly destruction is completely normal to her worldview. The way it was described to have happened to Kenos's universe reminded her a lot of the Infinity Stones and meant that she firmly went this can be fixed. Nebula has had no doubts in the possibility it happened and the potential for things to be changed.
While she did hold off harmonizing for a few weeks it was not from a lack of outward decision - She discusses being tortured with Amos at the hands of her father and when he hopes "his father was killed before the world was destroyed", Nebula retorted that her father and world were destroyed, but not her home. Later on during the carnival when Hayame probes for why she had not yet harmonized and they bonded over similar reasoning, Nebula tried to assure her that it was not from a lack of belief in the goals but a failure to have hope that was keeping her from it. Hayame suggests she need not hope but to have determination.
The carnival event circulated with a lot of memories and an attempt to overcome those feelings. Nebula staying unharmonized for a short while was because she was grappling with not the idea of saving them but the fact that for the first time in her life there was something she refused to lose.
While she does still have some lingering wariness at trusting either side it's more a circumstance of not having the full details and a life of not being able to trust others. This does not mean that Meridian does not appeal to her better senses. Highstorm and all she's heard about Zenith reminds her of her father and a life she does not want to go back to. How easily any Zenite can accept the destruction of their world rubs the wrong way to her. More specifically, she has found some loyalty to Meridian.
During Cyrus's message she immediately reached out to discuss the need to evacuate civilians. She does try to treat him with stalwart respect even if in other places she calls him a sentimental fool publicly. This is not actually a bad thing for Nebula - it's actually her own approval and she says it in a roundabout way to Hayame, "the galaxy loves fools like that". (She also knows that she too is a fool like that, because her heart yearns to trust which is what she's trying to do).
In later Meridian conversations she mostly listens, but while she disagrees she decides to help protect fellow Meridian Rudbeckia - less from feeling she's pathetic as a need of someone who might need it as a fellow Meridian. And while she did judge them was willing to help further Set's understanding of guns if it gave Meridian an advantage (she declined teaching tech with Voryn if only because at the time she doesn't want to admit how much of her is mechanical and that's what she's looking for).
During the actual Harbinger Oracle, Nebula did go into it with the full intent of aiming to win for Meridian as possible. She does do this for most of the oracle event... Or the entirety of it, in her own way, if you count it as such. Because while she did have the drive to push and win a lot of her goals were "softer" and more about loss rather intentionally. She casually mentions to Cid about how they're fighting for the fates of their worlds at whatever the cost and when Dimitri asked her what she's willing to lose she claims with single-minded determination that she will return home and refuses to lose nothing else.
"Nothing else" isn't defined so much as her mind/her body. She is in fact willing to lose all of that to Meridian's cause because her focus is returning to her family - to ensure that they live and thrive again. However, while she is unafraid to lose her life/body she is afraid of giving up who she's become and what she's gained - returning to a life of destruction and being a destructive person is one she refuses to be. This in short, both her rejecting the Harbinger's desire for competitiveness or ever choosing Zenith as an option in her avoidance to cause more destruction as she once explained to Hayame.
While she does have some mixed feelings on Amos Burton thanks to being fellow Exalts and him giving her... She doesn't have a word for it, feelings she doesn't want!!! She has no interest in befriending Zenites more than she has to and has found that she... likes and respects Hayame and her blunt behaviour. She can appreciate it (I wonder why). And has gone out of her way to help Meridians, Liem when he was trapped despite wanting to go it on her own. And begrudgingly helping Yuri catch goldfish because that's how you support your teammates???
Nebula's always been a character of strong, undeterred resolve. She had to be to survive as long as she did - be it to kill her sister or her father. While she had been learning to relax the threat of losing their family and her home has only reminded her of that need all over again. Her faith in Meridian is unshaken in this way and she goes as far as to lightly judge Link over being able to deharmonize (sorry, Link).
The more abbreviated version is Nebula knew where she was going from the moment she arrived. Her conversations and experiences with others only pushed her to further cement that resolve. While she did ultimately kind of flop the Harbinger by deciding she refused to give it what she gained because she already suffered and so it could have her past self as a kind of "I don't need your judgement" THAT PROBABLY DIDN'T HEP AT ALL... It was also still a decision not made lightly and with utmost belief it was still something that had shaped her and was in this way important (she just didn't cling to it anymore). So it was genuinely solidly an attempt to help Meris...
And while she is a lot softer to children and less willing to kill people than she was in the past she still whole-heartedly believes that what Meridian is aiming for is the right path and she cannot choose Zenith because (to her) it's taking the steps back to a person she does not want to be. To choose Zenith to her is to give up on herself and her family - and when it comes to the latter she has no lack of will to do just about anything.
Spellbook Spells: Warding Wind, Zone of Truth, Plant Growth
no subject
Faction: Meridian
Did your character keep their Sunbeam bead? Yes
New Tier: Tier 3
Justification:
For Nebula, choosing Zenith has never been an option. Amos pegged her as a Meridian in her first few weeks in Kenos after trying to convince her to join Zenith, a fact she had then openly instilled to Hayame within the same timeframe. Highstorm and many of the Zenith members ideals would simply remind her of her Father and all the torment she lived under for years. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, Nebula is a Guardian.
This is an important subject matter when considering where her current mentality and heart lies. The Harbinger Oracle didn't bring with her a lot of fighting - although it did set her at odds with Amos and Gen respectfully - but it did open a lot of wounds and thoughts of family, on who she wants to be as a person. This did inevitably drive her to tiering up within Meridian in the first place. Nebula's sole focus in the Harbinger Oracle being driven by her emotional capacity to care about them in the first place.
What it led to after/her further harmonization led to was a strong belief that she was right and that she cannot lose her family. Again. (Because remember! She did lose her entire family save Rocket for five years in the past - and now she's all alone). She also refuses to forget about them, which is why she's hardlined into the fact that she's a Guardian, using their desire to try and protect all people of all worlds to propel her ideology within Meridian itself.
She did and does still fully believe that all the worlds were destroyed, but because of her own experiences with life, death, and destruction believes that there is nothing preventing them from stopping it. If Meridian claims it can return it then she whole-heartedly believes it as she expresses to Dimitri: She cannot give up on them because she knows it's possible, if they gather the Oracles and Meridian can achieve it. She's talked a little about her association with Zenith and Thanos and how a life of destruction was all she ever knew as a Daughter of Thanos which is not a title she claims anymore - refuses to - and only accepts being called a Guardian. Thus, when Set calls to her for help making his weapon she tells him she does not have hope but fully believes in Meridian's cause.
During the above conversation, she goes into how she sees Zenites (and neutral parties) and the current moment: "There are those who think this all a farce. Maybe it is. If it isn't, then the fate of all worlds hang in the balance. Anyone who cannot accept that are idiots. Zenites are monsters who would choose to kill trillions for their visions." She unrefutably sees that by choosing to create a new world and letting the others go that Zenites are as bad as the Oblivion that caused the destruction in the first place - and with some claiming that they can make "a better world" (Amos) she only sees it as ridiculous and laughable (because her experience with these types of people have been godlike control freaks who will destroy that same world in a second if it displeases them).
Essentially, she has no faith in a world Zeniths will create and thinks that any one of them wanting to discard their own worlds are cowards and selfish - and if it's so bad why not just go to another world???
What has she done about and what has she done for Meridian?
When Set approached her about helping with his gun she was willing with no hesitation - though she was upfront that she preferred not to harm innocents (and would only kill as a last resort herself; because Nebula killing would mean a shard snapping she's that kind of person). She did not hesitate to get up and fight in the assault on Springstar, although her motivations were largely to protect the people of Springstar itself.
She did actively confront Gavial and call her out on having chosen Zenith and why she would be fighting for Springstar citizens when it's her side that started the whole mess. While she ultimately chose to fight the person attacking a bystander in the moment she did tell her if she saw her again and with any Zenith she would not hesitate to kill either of them. She openly called Silco a monster and denounced anyone who stayed in Zenith after his little show. When Amos requested names of the lost people she felt it was a spit in the face and denied it, despite having worked for weeks taking said names.
When Matt started looking to make friends saying that he wanted to work together with anyone she refuted with if he's not Meridian she's not working with him this later escalated into him managing to brain call her again so she demanded he put his money where his mouth is, not knowing he was Zenith. It does ultimately turn into her telling him if he tells anyone on Zenith where she's helping relocate people she would tear him to shreds while also telling Alice to pick a side and if it's Zenith she'll treat her as an enemy.
As for Meridian and Springstar itself, she has spent most of her time in recent weeks spearheading missing person/rescues (you know, she's unfortunately experienced in it and wants no one else to have to be) and has gone out of her way to try and understand and encourage other Meridians. She tried to understand why Gray wanted to kiss others and also tried [and failed] to tell her she was capable and dangerous. And although she was clearly unhappy with his view of her did go out of her way to check up on Ryouma after he harmonized and even when he looked out of sorts at Cyrus's funeral.
This goes further into checking in on Dimitri (linked above) and D, rescuing Hayame, seeing Ruby being bullied and stepping in because she's a Meridian and thus an ally, reached out to Set to call him an idiot but also remind him they're allies. She also tried to offer a call to arms to Meridians that now was the time for action and recovery.
Essentially, while there haven't necessarily been a lot of physical altercations since the Oracle, Nebula has held fast to her belief of what the Meridian is and can be while denouncing the possibility of Zenith being right. She is doing her best to trust her fellow Meridians and won't see harm to them even if she dislikes their stances (sorry Ruby). She fully believes all lives have meaning and everyone deserves a second chance which is why... While it's still in development, Set telling her her sister Gamora was previously in Kenos will hold quite a sway in her belief. Gamora being a Meridian would have once turned her to Zenith - but these days it means that Nebula will not sway from the action if this is what her sister had done. Ultimately, her response to future Meridian goals and (eventually saving Mr Tibbs) will be reinforced by her love and belief in her sister who... Specifically, wanted to save all the children in the universe like them. So what was already there will be embraced tenfold because this is the Gamora who was likely dead and if they can share the same goal, Nebula is going to die with it.
... Which, to be fair, her Meridian stance is already "I will die if it means that my family will be alive again". So really she's just insane.
Spellbook Spells: Remove Curse, Fabricate